Save the World and Get the Girl
by aviatrix
Summary: The whys and wherefores of Quentin Travers, circa 1946.


AUTHOR: Aviatrix  
  
TITLE: Save the World and Get the Girl  
  
SUMMARY: The whys and wherefores of Quentin Travers, circa 1956. Written with a strong denial of the exploding!Council building.  
  
RATING: PG-13. Adult situations. Implied slash and het. Etc.  
  
DISCLAIMER: Whedon's, not mine. Don't sue. Etc.  
  
BETA: Ruth Bogars, who I found (or who found me) on WatcherGirls. Many heartfelt thanks.  
  
xx  
  
There was a time when Quentin Travers walked slowly through backstreets and alleys, thinking about changing the world.   
  
Somewhere along the line, he learned that the dark, uncharted parts of the city were for other people: criminals, demons, slayers. Everyone has a position, and everything must be in its rightful place. He knows that now.  
  
These days, he only thinks about saving the world, and saving himself.  
  
xx  
  
1956, London. The year of his dissolution. The Watcher's Council fought a different war from the rest of the world, and Quentin read the daily paper with bland resignation and the odd confusion. He watched demons being killed and empires being built, and, eventually, empires being destroyed.  
  
Mainly, he filed papers.   
  
  
  
xx  
  
When he was 10, and his father had taken him aside and told him what he was, what they were, Quentin had thought his father was a superhero. He had daydreams about being dashing and dapper and saving the world with a beautiful Slayer in his arms. He'd been bitterly disappointed when he saw his father's desk, the piles of paper and cold small grey room. It wasn't the desk of a hero, not by a long shot.  
  
Quentin didn't get it then, but he gets it now. This is what a Travers does. He has no supernatural blood, no high station, no intrinsic skill. He watches the Watchers, does the paperwork, and drags himself up through the ranks by his bootstraps. He clings desperately to whatever control he gets, and doesn't let it slip away 'til someone dies.  
  
  
  
xx  
  
He's not sure who he fell in love with first; the Slayer, or the Watcher.  
  
Edward Giles was effortless wealth and connections, slicked-back hair and expensive wool suits. Aristocratic hands mindlessly fingering gold cufflinks, writing letters to royalty on personalized stationery. He had been born into a profession he didn't quite want, but he'd never say that; he'd just flash that look of weary superiority and intimate with his body his own particular brand of "I don't want to be here with you." Professional to the core.  
  
Sophia Blackwell was equally haughty; post-war blonde with arrogant lips and teasing hips. Vicious with stakes and words, long legs like an invitation to the most prestigious party in town. Sensible shoes notwithstanding, she had an air of impracticality about her: alien violence forced onto dainty upper-class hands, such a tiny thing to save the world: what's a girl like you doing in a dive like this?  
  
They were both untouchable. They were both beautiful. And Quentin wanted both of them with a painful intensity that made his hands shake and his head hurt. He was what Quentin should have been, she was what Quentin should have been doing. Those were the clothes he should've been wearing. This was the life he should've had.   
  
Quentin hated his father.  
  
xx  
  
Edward was killed in August by a vampire. No fanfare, no sacrificial world-saving. No dying in the arms of his one true love.  
  
  
  
Quentin would've gladly taken his place. But he couldn't, and so he wrote the report, took the post-mortem pictures, and filed them away with the rest of the records of dead watchers. He tried not to think to hard about what he was doing, and eventually discovered the secret of the English stiff-upper-lip: pretend you don't care for a long enough time, and eventually it becomes second nature. 'It wasn't the end of the world, after all,' he reminded himself constantly. 'Worse things could've happened.'  
  
They brought Sophia into the Council building the morning after, for consolation or maybe just to . She sat in the lobby with her arms folded over her chest, looking lost in that giant grey building. He almost felt sorry for her, until she looked up and caught his eye, and dismissed him with a teary smirk.  
  
'Ah, yes,' he thought. 'Still the same girl.'  
  
  
  
xx  
  
Through boot-licking and strategic deaths, Quentin climbed to the top and instantly pretended that he had always been there. He wore his tailored coats and expensive shoes like a snarling denial of years of menial labor. He brought back the Cruciamentum like it was the most natural thing in the world, and used someone else's arrogance to fuel his voice and his vices and his plans to keep himself alive. It worked, mostly.  
  
This is what happens when the world doesn't end. This is what happens when the meek inherit the earth.  
  
He runs the Council now with cold efficiency and no regrets, no attention paid to Slayers or Watchers who don't follow rules. He has no time for Gileses or blondes or any combination of the two. He will not get involved, he swears it.   
  
He does what he has to do to save the world.  
  
xx FIN. etc. xx 


End file.
